Acupuncture anesthesia and analgesia for clinical acute pain in Japan.

Reina Taguchi

doi:10.1093/ecam/nem056

Abstract

Acupuncture anesthesia has been practiced in China since about 1960. In Japan, Hyodo reported 30 cases of acupuncture anesthesia in 1972. However, from around 1980, the direction of acupuncture investigations turned from anesthesia to analgesia. Acupuncture analgesia is presently considered a way to activate the body's endogenous analgesic system. Recently, with the rise of acupuncture as one of the most well known CAM therapies, acupuncture or moxibustion treatment has been reported for both acute and chronic pain. Even so, few clinical reports and original articles have been reported in Japan. This review illustrates how acupuncture is being used in Japan for acute pain such as surgical operations, post- operative pain (POP), neuropathic pain, pain associated with teeth extractions and after the extraction of impacted wisdom teeth.

Highlights

In 1971, a Japanese newspaper article on acupuncture anesthesia in China reported that low frequency electrical acupuncture (LFEA) was being used for anesthesia in abdominal operations such as appendicitis and that the consciousness of the patients remained clear during the operations
The results varied considerably according to the individual and region of the body, to some extent they clarified that ear acupuncture points had counterparts in certain body regions and the authors were able to conclude that ear acupuncture was useful in achieving analgesia or anesthesia
Ishimaru and co-workers examined how LFEA and silver spike point (SSP) influenced the pain threshold in the abdominal area [10]. Both LFEA and SSP induced analgesic effects in the abdominal area and acupuncture analgesia produced by LFEA was faster and higher than that of the SSP stimulation

Summary

Introduction

In 1971, a Japanese newspaper article on acupuncture anesthesia in China reported that low frequency electrical acupuncture (LFEA) was being used for anesthesia in abdominal operations such as appendicitis and that the consciousness of the patients remained clear during the operations. This report accelerated fundamental study on acupuncture anesthesia and analgesia and acupuncture treatment was used for analgesia in the treatment of pain in Japan. There are some drawbacks, : (i) anesthesia produced by acupuncture has individual variations and (ii) too much time is needed to induce anesthesia For these reasons, investigations of acupuncture analgesia in preference to acupuncture anesthesia accelerated in the latter half of the 1980s. In Japan, the analgesic benefits of acupuncture and moxibustion treatment for various kinds of pain are accepted experimentally. This use has led ß 2007 The Author(s). I intend to introduce fundamental research into acupuncture analgesia and the clinical research on acupuncture analgesia and anesthesia for acute pain that have been conducted in Japan

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Conclusion